Tuesday, April 29, 2014

So, farewell then, NZ Post Book Awards

NZ Post has been
sponsor of the children’s book awards since
1997 and of the grown-up book awards since
2010. It has been an exemplary sponsor – but this will be the last year.

Or so my bookseller
friends tell me. No one whom I know knows for sure, but this is the word in the
book trade. Odd that it hasn’t been reported anywhere, at least that I have
seen.

If it is true – and it would
be understandable given the sunset-industry state of NZ Post’s core business – I
wonder where on earth the book trade will find another corporate sponsor that will
see a benefit to its business in aligning itself with the dwindling number of booksellers,
publishers and readers. Bah.

So here is Elvis
Costello (and the least enthusiastic backing singers you’ll ever see) with “Every
Day I Write the Book” from his 1983 album Punch
the Clock: